Last night while waiting for the split peas to mushify themselves into soup we started watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I'd seen the film version of Edward Albee's play several years ago at my apartment in Portland (back when I lived on the same block as Holocene!), but my new flatmate, who is a history teacher, pumped me up with a discussion of all of its historical, political, psychological themes and references (George and Martha Washington, the Cold War, fear of communism, Freudian elements, the war between the sexes, etc.) which had largely gone over my head before. Movies, like poems, you sometimes have to go over twice before you glean their meaning - the first time they just kind of wash over you. After seeing it for the second time last night I can definitely add it to my list of favorite movies.
I first read some of Albee's play back in college while going through my hardcore Virginia Woolf / Bloomsbury phase. (When I finally make it to England, I'll definitely be making pilgrimmages to Woolf /Stephen sites such as the River Ouse, Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, Hogarth House, Charleston, etc.) Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it actually has absolutely nothing to do with Woolf! In fact the title seems to be meaningless, although I was thinking about it and came up with a theory - Woolf was childless her entire life and often felt she wasn't a fully successful woman because she'd never created a life. Since the movie is filled with references to babies and children (who are never seen, only talked about), it seems the choice of title may be a sly reference to Martha and George's predicament, with the weird theme of their imaginary "son" who dominates much of the dialogue in the second and third acts without ever actually solidfying into a flesh-and-blood being.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is filmed in gorgeous, high-contrast black and white that bathes everything in a silvery, gelatin-plate luminescence. The cinematographer (Haskell Wexler) uses an extreme wide-angle lens in many of the close-up shots that adds a grotesque, funhouse-mirror effect that accentuates the dramatic tension of the action. It's a brilliant, drunken trainwreck of a movie. Fun for the whole family! My flatmate says, "This was Albee's attempt to lift the veil on American family life and show the ugly truth beneath it." Interesting, because that's the same premise of some of my other favorite films as well, such as Blue Velvet and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Strange bedfellows?
I love the way Liz Taylor plays Martha, but Sandy Dennis as Honey aggravates me. I want to take her weak little wrists and just break them. Interesting how when someone takes vulnerability to an extreme, it brings out your sadistic impulses - you want to hurt them, because they seem to be calling for that response from you. I tend to admire strength in women and vulnerability in men. Although sometimes the opposite in both cases, as well.
I think I want to write a play in a similar style about the Castro District, where I was job-hunting yesterday. About its evolution / transformation over the years from working class neighborhood (named after one of the Spanish missionaries, lots of Irish immigrants) to gay ghetto beginning in the 60s, and finally into its current sad state of utterly gentrified yuppiegaiety.
I'd still work there, though.
